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Gainax
is a Japanese anime studio most well known for the series Neon Genesis Evangelion and its ambitious, experimental works and ambiguous endings. "Gainax Ending" on Television Tropes Wiki Until Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gainax typically worked on stories created in-house, but the studio has increasingly developed anime adaptations of existing manga like Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou and Mahoromatic. Gainax could be said to produce two types of anime today : commercial works like Mahoromatic and He is My Master versus more experimental works that follow the company's traditions, such as FLCL and Diebuster. In addition to anime production, Gainax heavily merchandises its famous properties. For example, even though Evangelion ended in 1996, games, t-shirts, and various other memorabilia are still being produced. Anime created by Gainax that have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award have been Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water in 1991, Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995 and 1996, and The End of Evangelion in 1997. History The studio was formed in the early 1980s as Daicon Film by university students Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Takami Akai, and Shinji Higuchi. Their first project was to make an animated short for the 20th Annual Japan National SF Convention, also known as Daicon III, held in 1981 in Osaka, Japan. The short film is about a little girl who fights all sorts of monsters, robots, and spaceships from earlier science fiction TV shows (including Ultraman, Gundam, Space Runaway Ideon, Space Battleship Yamato, Star Trek, Star Wars, Godzilla, and many others) until she finally reaches a desert plain and pours a glass of water on a dried-out daikon radish, which immediately resurrects itself and grows into a huge spaceship and beams her aboard. While this animated short was ambitious, its animation was rough and low-quality. The group made a much bigger splash at the 22nd Annual Japan National SF Convention, Daicon IV, in 1983. The short they produced for this convention started with a recap of the original short, showing highlights of the little girl's adventures with much better animation quality; then it showed the girl all grown up: wearing a Playboy bunny suit, fighting an even wider selection of creatures from all sorts of science fiction and fantasy movies and novels (appearances include various Mobile Suits from the Gundam series, Darth Vader, an Alien, a Macross Valkyrie, a Pern dragon, Aslan, a Klingon battle cruiser, Spider-Man, and a pan across a vast array of hundreds of other characters) as she surfs through the sky on the sword Stormbringer. The action was set to the song "Twilight" from the group Electric Light Orchestra. The use of this song, however, was unlicensed, preventing the short from being officially released on DVD, making the limited laserdisc release (Daicon Film) of the Daicon shorts very rare and highly sought after. The Daicon IV short firmly established Daicon Film as a talented new anime studio (albeit small and on a shoestring - it was founded in Musashino, Tokyo with only 20 million yen, ~200,000USD''Asahi Shimbun/ASAHI EVENING NEWS. November 13, 1998. "JAPAN- Animator hit for tax evasion" Pg. News.). The studio changed its name to Gainax in 1985. Since Gainax has originated as a group of fans, it has maintained ties to the general otaku community, allowing doujinshi of its work, fan-made action figures"The creation of a sexy Rei is in fact legal because anime production studio Gainax Co. approves fan-made production under certain conditions. Normally, anime copyright owners do not grant individuals approval to use their characters. But Gainax permits fans to make and sell up to 200 action figures a year per project. Gainax receives some 50 applications every year for fan production. The company believes permitting these products "helps to prevent undesirable alterations and to maintain the characters' popularity," an official at the company's rights planning department said." ''The Nikkei Weekly (Japan) December 17, 2007 Monday, "Hostile responses not enough in battles with infringers" , and promoting series like Evangelion at private festivals and so on. As a commercial entity, Gainax's first essay was Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, released in 1987. Honneamise was (and still is) critically acclaimed and a classic anime movie; however, it had a tepid commercial reaction. Gainax would attempt to develop a sequel later in March 1992 and abandon it for lack of funds. Gunbuster was the next release, in 1988. The OVA was a commercial success" "The first commercial success of the fan-turned-pro studio Gainax, "Gunbuster" ("Aim for the Top!") was the first anime OVA (original video animation) made by and for the "otaku generation" - a series for those who love anime. Not tied to any pre-existing manga or toy campaign, "Gunbuster" was a declaration that anime could be made for its own sake."" Business Wire. October 24, 2006 Tuesday 1:00 PM GMT "Image Entertainment and Bandai Visual USA to Release Classic Anime Series Gunbuster" and put Gainax on the stabler footing to produce works like Nadia or Otaku no Video. During this period, Gainax produced a number of items besides anime series and movies - garagekits, adult video games (a major earner which kept Gainax afloat on occasion, and which were sometimes banned''Electronic Brain Academy Scenario 1'' (released November 1990) was banned in July 1992 in Miyazaki Prefecture, the first to be so banned in Japan; Gainax sued, charging the ban was unconstitutional, but lost. See Japan Economic Newswire JANUARY 24, 1994, MONDAY. "Court backs ban on sale, lease of porno computer game". By Miyazaki, Jan. 24 Kyodo, and other such items. In 1995, Gainax produced perhaps their best known series, the commercially successful and critically acclaimed Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the wake of Evangelion's success, Gainax was accused of tax evasion and its president, Takeshi Sawamura, was sentenced to jail for accounting fraud . Gainax marked their 20th anniversary with the production of the sequel to ''Gunbuster, Diebuster. Works Gainax works include (year given is that of first broadcast, theatre showing, or publishing): * Series ** Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990) (Fushigi no Umi no Nadia) ** Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) (Shin Seiki Evangelion) ** His and Her Circumstances (1998) (Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo or "Kare Kano") ** Modern Love's Silliness (1999) ** Oruchuban Ebichu (1999) ** Mahoromatic (2001) ** Petite Princess Yucie (2002) (Puchi Puri Yūshi) ** Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (2002) ** The Melody of Oblivion (2004) (Boukyaku no Senritsu) ** This Ugly Yet Beautiful World (2004) (Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai or "Konomini") ** He is My Master (2005) ** Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007) * Films ** Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987) ** Evangelion: Death & Rebirth / The End of Evangelion (1997/1998)(Animation co-produced by Production I.G) ** Cutie Honey (2004) (opening animation) ** Gunbuster & Diebuster Movie (2006) ** Rebuild of Evangelion four-film series (2007-????) (Co-franchise owners with Anno's Studio Khara; not involved in animation production) * OVAs ** Top o Nerae! Gunbuster (1988) ("Aim for the Top! Gunbuster") ** Beat Shot (1989) ** Circuit no Ohkami 2 Modena no Tsurugi (1990) ** ''Blazing Transfer Student (1991) ** Money Wars (1991) ** Otaku no Video (1991) ** FLCL (2000) (pronounced "Furi Kuri", or "Fooly Cooly" in English) ** Re: Cutie Honey (2004) ** Diebuster (2004) (Top o Nerae 2! or "Aim for the Top 2!") Gainax has also produced a number of computer games, including a strip mahjong game featuring Evangelion characters, and its most famous games, the Princess Maker series, which was later adapted as Puchi Puri Yūshi. Collaborations Gainax has also teamed with other groups to create various works; they have worked on a 1987 promotional video for the song "Marionette" by Boøwy,Takeda 2002 and collaborated with a Japanese fashion doll company to create Momoko-based "Gainax Girls" fashion dolls in 2006.Momoko Doll as Gainax Girls Daicon Tokusatsu fan films As Daicon Films, Gainax was also notable for making a series of tokusatsu fan film shorts in the 1980s , usually parodies of monster movies and superhero shows, which have gotten lots of favorable media coverage . These productions included: * (1982): A parody of the popular Super Sentai shows, which is also a satire of the Russo-Japanese War. The title team is based on Japanese culture (of course) and the villains, the evil Red Bear Empire led by "Death Kremlin", are Russians. In this "episode", Red Bear confronts our heroes with the giant shark monster, Minsk Mask, while attempting to brainwash the children of Japan by swapping out the pages of their textbooks with red paper. Shinji Higuchi worked on the special effects. * (1982): A parody of Shotaro Ishinomori's ''Kaiketsu Zubat; the name of the hero's alter-ego (Ken Hayakawa) is the same, but the hero wears a sillier costume! Daicon/Gainax producer Yasuhiro Takeda played Ken Hayakawa. It spawned three sequels: "Kaiketsu Noutenki 2" in which he faces off against a mechanical clone of himself, Mecha Noutenki; "Noutenki in USA" where the hero walks around in San Francisco, California, seeing the sights whilst in costume; and a supposed role-playing video. * (1983): A same-title parody of ''Return of Ultraman, with some impressive special effects, even for a low budget. The usual Ultraman derring-do ensues, only replace New Ultraman/Ultraman Jack with a giant Hideaki Anno in a vinyl Ultraman trick-or-treat outfit and glasses! Anno directed while Takami Akai directed the special effects.Takeda 2002. * (1985): Daicon's epic 72-minute sendup of daikaiju (giant monster) movies, with special effects by Shinji Higuchi. This was the most heavily promoted of their short films.Takeda 2002 Reputation in America Gainax is known in American culture for what are now called "the Gainax bounce" and "Gainax Endings". They also coined the term (or helped popularize the term) "Fan Service". *"Gainax Endings" - In American culture any anime, television show (or movie to a lesser extent) with an ambiguous, cheaply made, poorly understood, and/or odd ending came to be known as a "Gainax Ending"."Gainax Ending" on Television Tropes Wiki "The Gainax Ending" on An Island Where No One lives *Fan Service - a vaguely defined term usually used for Japanese visual media, referring to elements in a story that are unnecessary to a storyline, but designed to amuse or sexually excite the audience . References * Further reading * Hernandez, Lea. "The Curse of Urusei Yatsura", interview by ''PULP magazine, vol. 5, no. 8 (August 2001): 24–29. ISSN 1096-0228. * Howell, Shon. "The Fabulous Dog and Pony Show: An Interview with Shon Howell". By Ben Dunn. Mangazine, vol. 2, no. 23 (May 1993): 11–18. Shon Howell was the second vice president of Gainax in charge of United States operations (General Products) after Lea Hernandez (the first) quit. * Howell, Shon. "The Fabulous Dog and Pony Show". Mangazine, vol. 2, nos. 24 (June 1993), 25 (July 1993), 27 (September 1993), 30 (December 1993), 31 (January 1994), 32 (February 1994). A column further detailing Shon Howell's experiences with Gainax. * Leonard, Andrew. "Heads Up, Mickey". Wired, issue 3.04, April 1995. An article on anime, focusing on the history of Gainax. External links * GAINAX NET — Gainax's official Web site ** Gainax's Official Daicon Films Website — Info on their classic tokusatsu & anime shorts (DVDs available there). Category:Japanese video game companies Category:Tokusatsu * ca:Gainax cs:Gainax da:Gainax de:GAINAX es:Gainax fr:Studio Gainax ko:가이낙스 it:Gainax ja:ガイナックス pl:Gainax pt:GAINAX ru:GAINAX sv:Gainax th:สตูดิโอไกแน็กซ์ zh:GAINAX